Grant: Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant: Genetics

With the publication of the genome sequence of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis in 2002, tunicates became a major new model organism for genetics research. They provide many of the experimental advantages of the conventional invertebrate models (Drosophila, Caenorhabditis) including easily controlled and experimentally accessible developmental biology, but with the additional feature of close evolutionary relationship to vertebrates within the chordate phylum. The International Tunicate Meeting (ITM) is the major scientific gathering of the tunicate research community. It is a regular biennial meeting of ~150-200 researchers from around the world, organized as a scientific conference with research presentations given in plenary sessions. Previous meetings were in Okinawa, Japan(2009), Villefranche-sur-Mer, France(2007) the University of California Santa Barbara(2005), Marseille, France(2003) and the first meeting was on main-island Japan in 2000. The meeting has never been held in Canada. The 6th ITM, organized by Ken Hastings, will be held in Canada, at McGill University in Montreal July 3-7, 2011. The occurrence of the meeting in Canada highlights the active participation of Canadian scientists in leadership roles in international genetics/genomics research. It also provides an excellent opportunity to expose the Canadian genetics research community, including trainees, to the latest developments, and leading researchers, in a key emerging model system. To maximize this outreach function, attendance at the plenary sessions will be open and free, and the meeting will be broadly publicized in Canadian universities. Because the 6th ITM provides an opportunity to increase awareness of an emerging genetic model system in the Canadian genetics research community we are approaching the IG to provide financial support through the Meetings, Planning,and Dissemination grants program.